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Su Song
Northern Song chief minister and scholar who compiled an illustrated pharmacopoeia and, with Han Gonglian, built the water-driven astronomical clock tower described in his Xin yixiang fayao
On an observatory terrace at night, a large bronze armillary sphere stands on a stone base while two people stand with their backs turned facing the view; stars are joined into constellation lines overhead, and a sundial and tiered dripping water vessels stand at the right.
Also known as Zi Zirong · Weiguo Gong · Shi Zhengjian
Su Song, courtesy name Zirong, came from Tong'an in Quanzhou, now part of Xiamen, later settled at Danyang, and passed the jinshi examination in 1042. In the Jiayou years he collated medical texts in the Jixian Academy and directed the compilation of the illustrated pharmacopoeia Bencao tujing. In 1070 he lost his drafting post for refusing to write the appointment of Li Ding. Ordered in 1086 to inspect the court's armillary spheres, he recommended the clerk Han Gonglian, and by 1088 they had built a clock tower in which a water wheel turned an armillary sphere, a celestial globe and time-announcing figures; Su described it, with star maps, in his Xin yixiang fayao (Essentials of a New Method for Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe). He became a chief minister in 1092 and left office the next year. He died in 1101 with the posthumous name Zhengjian and was later named Duke of Wei. Wang Zhenduo and others have built working reconstructions of the clock from his book since 1958.
Life and times
Dates 1020 CE–1101 CE